Banks are shifting their digital prominence to bill payments and presentments with advancements in Web, Mobile and Social media along with the rise in it's customer adoption. In fact, in the years to come by, banks are going to have a level playing field with reduced product and service differentiation. Having an extra edge in customer services while enhancing the needs of the customer’s with innovation will be the major differentiators.

Bill payment is one of the prime domains that has received immense excitement in this digital journey of customers with banks. Some banks claim that customers registered for bill Payment and direct debits are highly unlikely to move from them to a competitor. Consumers are more tech-savvy now than ever and their expectations on payments sphere have increased consistently. Banks are under tremendous pressure to meet these expectations while delighting consumers.

Various technological advancements are transforming Bill payments to be more convenient, easier and unburdened to use. As customers look at payments from various dimensions, Social media including face book, twitter have grown from being an alternate channel to primary channels of transacting. Customers are expecting bill pay capabilities to be made available across increasing range of channels and devices.

In a recent analysis performed by Infosys, North American banks have seen to be forerunners in providing innovative Bill pay features followed by Asian, European banks. Surprisingly, some Latin American banks are differentiating in this domain. Speaking of innovation in bill pay features, North American banks followed by Asian and European banks are differentiating in bill pay features.

While banks across all demographics are emphasizing on having a sound digital strategy, there is not much variance in the objectives laid by the banks for bill payments and presentments. Similar analysis can be applied to the Products and services as well. Recently, a bank quoted that its customers who adopt bill pay have a higher rate of satisfaction with the bank and have more relationships with the bank, attrite less and hold higher balances.

Alerts & Payments:

Technological advancements in mobile devices have changed the pattern of digital banking like never before. Wearable including Smart watches, Smart Glasses, Wearable Gear are differentiating the payment landscape and the way customers’ bank. Alerts can be directed to these personalized wearable gadgets which would enable the consumer to opt and pay bills on the go without logging into mobile app. Further, enabling pre-authorization of pre-set limits for the billers will provide differentiation.

Voice commands:

Using advanced speech recognition technology, customers can be empowered to make their bill payment through voice on-the-go. This can be allowed without the customers logging into the mobile app provided pre-authorization of set payment limits on billers. This can be achieved ahead of time through online banking. This can be clubbed with the confluence of physical and digital worlds.

Service based billing and payment:

With Internet-of-things (IOT), Bill presentment and Payments can materialize in unique ways. Smart home appliances and large scale equipment leased can be enabled for self-usage monitoring during the billing period. Bill presentment can be triggered at the end of regular cycles and enable communication with bank apps.

Proactive bill pay enablement:

Banks can present their customers with pleasant pop ups for Bill presentment and Scheduling Bill payments on portals, mobile websites and mobile apps. For example, one-time payments made by customers can be converted to schedule recurring payments by prompting customers proactively through various channels to register for these hassle free services.